Reader: The bias in his words

Letters

In his response to Mallory Everhart's column about the prejudice she faces by being a queer Christian, the very bias Rev. Tommy Latham denies in the community is evident in his own words. Perhaps he thinks his assertion that "we are all sinners" is benign and offers a kind of humility in which he puts himself on par with people like Mallory. However, it does not put him on par with her. He is implicitly above her on a hierarchy of goodness because presumably his sins are something that can be changed.

I find it very bizarre that evangelicals think we can all just wake up one morning and choose to change our sexualities like we are choosing from a menu. I don't even think they believe it themselves, yet they suppress their own God-given intellectual curiosities because of the goodies they hope to get after they die.

They might imagine their timidity in the face of facts has no cost, but it does. It hurts honest people like Mallory and it conveys, implicitly, that there is something terribly wrong with them. Latham states that he knows of no churches in town that rant and rail against gays, but discrimination doesn't have to be shouted from the rooftops to be evident. It is evident enough to "sinners" like Mallory.